


Number 2: The Butterfly Room

by Sonora



Series: Heads in Boxes [7]
Category: The A-Team (2010), The Blacklist (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Underage Prostitution, Investigations, M/M, Minor Character Death, Mission Fic, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, The Fulcrum, Undercover as a Couple
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-07-08
Updated: 2017-08-18
Packaged: 2018-11-29 06:40:58
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 3
Words: 16,991
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11435286
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sonora/pseuds/Sonora
Summary: When the team's old friend Amy Allen asks the boys to look after a source she's using for a story, Face finds himself drawn back into a criminal web he'd rather forget, working with a former FBI agent whose agenda is entirely his own.Meanwhile, Donald Ressler's pretty sure he's found the thread that'll unravel the insane sweater of lies that Reddington knits to protect himself from the world, and he's determined to find out where this goes.(AU along with the rest of the series)





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This story has been demanding I write it for a year.
> 
> You know me. I don't pull my punches but I don't dwell on the ugliness. This is mostly a story about the A-Team and Donald Ressler teaming up to ultimately beat the shit out of some very bad people. I promise catharsis, but it might hurt a little bit. I also promise nothing involving any illegal shit will be described in detail. 
> 
> Please read the tags.
> 
> Once a long time ago, in an attempt to keep our fandom psychopath from writing it, I filled a prompt asking for Face having a history as an underage prostitute. (It's called Xanadu, you can find it under my A-Team titles). Writing quality is questionable, and while it was intense, it's one of my favorite pieces. The Face there is the Face who's going to show up in this story. Obviously, this also feeds into the Heads in Boxes verse.
> 
> Or, I figured out what the Fulcrum is and I need this out of my head. Fuck what the writers can/will put on a broadcast channel, I know what the Fulcrum is.

"It's a bit rough but I promise you, the food's good."

Face barely listened to what their current client was saying, nodding along as he assessed the room around them.  An Amish market tucked into an old big-box store shell, with its cheap produce, hand-made furniture, and worn flooring, wasn't exactly the kind of venue he normally used for meetings like this.  Especially not when it was within a ten minute drive of a military base, on the edge of Washington DC.  But Amy had asked them to talk to the guy, and when Amy asked for a favor, they tried to follow through.

"I'm sure the food's fine," Face replied, still mentally cataloging every detail he could think of.  The wait staff there was all visibly Amish, the customers a mix of neighborhood folks and uniformed personnel from the nearby base.  Nothing seemed out of place.  "So what is it exactly you want to contract our services for?"

"Just like that?" the guy replied.

Face nodded.  

"I thought, by agreeing to meet..."

"I vet everyone we take on personally," Face told him, which wasn't exactly true.  Usually it was the boss and him both, but considering the military base nearby and Hannibal's longer history in the service, it seemed like too much of a risk.  "Can't help you unless we know what you need help with."

"Well, it started a few..." the guy began, but was cut off by the arrival of the waiter, a well-built ginger with a dark scraggly beard and a soft cast on his left arm.  

He took their order with clipped efficiency - few words, a broad smile - after reassuring them that everything was good but the chili was especially good that day.  The client got the chili, obviously trying to chat up the rather stoic-looking Amish waiter, and Face just got whatever burger didn’t sound too terrible.  The waiter promised a drink refill, and they were alone again.

“So when did it start?” Face inquired.  There was a table of Navy people being seated three tables down, and the uniform always made him nervous.  And a little bit angry.

“About a week ago, maybe.  I can’t really explain what it is, just a feeling.  You ever have that feeling, like you’re being watched?”

Face shrugged.  “I think we all do.  But, you know, my life, it makes sense.  You’re not exactly some international criminal, from what I can tell,” and he smiled.

“I don’t know.  Honestly, I’ve got no idea.”

“Maybe it has to do with what Amy was talking to you about,” Face replied blandly.  

The guy’s face twitched a bit.  “I, uhh, you mind if I hit the restroom before we get into this?  Been holding it a while.”

Face waved him off. 

Really, the dude sounded sincere enough.  He was afraid; that much was clear. 

How exactly he'd come to that conclusion was one of the things Face intended to establish over the course of this interview lunch.  He wasn’t lying.  It legitimately did not make any sense to him, why some GS-9 child care provider at the Joint Base Andrews CDC would be worthy of surveillance.  Amy was using him as a source on some story she was working on, though, something she was being very tight-lipped about, so it was probably just garden-variety paranoia.  Face had dealt with a lot of that over the years.

Reassurance ops were objectively a waste of their time.  But Hannibal, Hannibal didn’t have a problem spending a week or two collecting a paycheck and settling a client’s mind about their personal safety.  Easy money, the boss always said, a good break from some of the insane shit they normally dealt with.  Like that last one that involved a border town terrorized by a branch of that MS-13 gang.  Horrible shit.  So if Hannibal said take an easy job, Face found them an easy job.

He kept his gaze on the back corner of the store, where the bathroom was, and tried not to be distracted by all the damn military people in this place.

The client was rounding the corner back into the little restaurant from the bathroom in the back, a reasonable amount of time for him to be gone, when their waiter stopped him.  All smiles, nothing out of the ordinary, probably just asking about his meal... and then the waiter leaned in, and the client's expression changed to a look of horror.  Before Face could react, there was a flash of steel, a horrified gurgle, and blood was gushing from a two-inch gash on the client's neck

Arterial blood.

The client was dead before his face hit a half-finished bowl of chili at the table next to him  A kitchen knife clattered to the floor.

The women at the table screamed.

The waiter just walked briskly away, no expression, taking advantage of the momentary shock.  

Because then everything in the little restaurant just snapped.

People rushed in or rushed out, chairs overturning as customers shoved away from the grisly scene.  The restaurant floor was a scene of chaos, cell phones out, voices clamoring.   A couple women out to lunch with their kids tried to shove back Face's way, towards the exit at the front.  As he struggled past the panicked group, he could see somebody in uniform step in front of the waiter, and that's when the waiter pulled out a gun, unscrewing the suppressor from the end of the barrel.

Face shoved one of the women aside, and went for it.

The sergeant who'd stopped the ginger waiter backed away, even as the waiter edged back into the main aisle of the store.  A space formed around him as he turned, a calculating look in his eyes; not the look of a man who was trapped, but one who was coolly considering a series of previously-planned escape routes.  
There weren't any security cameras in here, but there were plenty of kids.

Thank god for shoulder holsters.

Hannibal could bitch him out for this later.

"Drop the gun, asshole," Face ordered calmly, stepping into that little circle, his own weapon raised.

The waiter smiled a little.  "Good to see you again, Peck," he said, almost conversationally, and fired three shots into the air.

The stampede that ensued was frustrating in its predictability.

Face didn't have a radio on.  Not for this, didn't seem like a big enough deal to get kitted out for.  Cursing his own stupidity, he tucked one earbud from his phone into his ear and took off in the direction that he'd briefly glimpsed the waiter running.  

BA came on immediately.

"Face, what's going on in there?"

"Meet went to shit.  Client was right.  Somebody was following him."

"Was?”

“Client’s dead," Face replied.  Out of the main throng, he caught sight of the waiter dashing through a back door into the storeroom area, and followed, gun raised and guard up.  If this was a professional assassin, and there was no reason to assume that this wasn't, he would have killed Face already if Face was on the target list.  Escape, not more murder, was likely the primary goal right now.  "Took a knife to neck."

"What's the assailant look like?"

"About six feet, reddish-brown hair, black cast on his left hand," he whispered, knowing the mic would pick it up, as he walked the aisles.  "Dressed like he's Amish.  I'm gonna try to flush him out the back."

“We on it."  A pause.  "Looks like somebody called the cops."

"Roger that, brother," Face muttered. 

Suddenly, the back door banged open, daylight flooding in and an emergency alarm screaming inside.

Face took off, out that solitary exit into the back parking lot of the strip mall, only to be greeted by the sight of that same gun right at eye level, too far away from him to disarm.  The eyes that glared at him over the barrel were a furious blue.

The cast was gone, and Face realizes why the killer had been wearing it.  A tattoo, some pin-dot stylized feather, ran down half his hand.

"My job's done, and I'm guessing yours never started," the waiter said in that same even tone.  "Let's both agree to walk away while we still can."

Face kept his gun up.  "Don't think so."

The guy raised an eyebrow.  "Since when does the A-Team take some pedophile kiddie porn photographer on as a client?"

 _Pedophile_.  That word hit hard, cutting right down to some ugly little place he never liked to think about; Face couldn't keep the shock off his face.  "I..."

"Didn't know.  Obviously.  But this guy ra-"

He didn't finish.

Because there was Murdock, taser in hand.  And there was the killer, spasming on the asphalt.

The sound of police sirens was cutting over the top of the old brick building, and the team van ripped up the alley, pulling up along side them.  Murdock pulled at Face's arm (he still had his weapon raised, and felt dazed as he tried to lower it).

"We gotta go, Faceman.  C'mon."

Face shook his head, walking back over to the guy.  "Something he said about this case... and he knows who we are..."

"Half the criminal underworld know who we are by now, fool!" BA yelled from the now-open door of the van.  "Get your asses in here and leave him for the cops!"

"This guy's a professional," Face muttered, staring down at the limp form, trying to get that _word_ out of his head.  "Who hires a professional to kill some two-bit GS employee?  Anybody in the military would have just done it themselves if he’d hurt their kid.”

"Faceman, what're you talking about?" Murdock asked.

"Grab his legs," Face replied, flipping the guy over.  A bit of a head wound, eyes rolled up in his skull, but other than that, he seemed to be okay.  Still unconscious, though.

"Face..." BA warned.

"Murdock, get his legs!" Face snapped.

They managed to get the killer into the van and the van out of the parking lot just before the first police cruiser rolled up.  Face didn't breath easy though, and BA didn't start bitching, until they were out on the relative safety and anonymity of the highway.

"You the one who has to explain this shit to the boss," BA told him from the front seat, very disapproving.

The killer was twitching.  Waking up.

"Yeah, yeah, I get it, man."  

Face dialed Hannibal.

Murdock broke out the chloroform.

No good trying to figure this shit out in the van in the middle of DC traffic.

+++++

Face had no idea what to do with this guy they have chained to the toilet.  What he did know was that Hannibal was not pleased about the situation.

But hours of research were indicating they should be treading very, very carefully.

Mostly because those hours hadn’t turned anything up.

“Nobody has any information on him,” Sosa was saying, voice tinny on the Skype feed, signal run through a couple of different VPN tunnels.  “According to my guy, this dude’s a black hole, not in a single law enforcement database here stateside.”

“Can you keep looking?”

“Face, come on.”

He ground a tired hand into his forehead.  

A black hole. 

Great. 

That left only a few possibilities for who this guy was - if he was anybody at all - and none of it was good.

“Maybe INTERPOL?”

“Now why in the hell would some major at the DIA be calling INTERPOL?”

“DHS would. You've got a favor or two to call in with buddies over there, right?” he said.  She was silent.  “Come on, please just try.”

“Okay.  But you owe me.”

The boss took the information silently as Face backbriefed the rest of the team.  Murdock looked anxious; BA barely looked up from his own computer.  Amy hadn’t gotten back to them yet, and none of their other contacts had turned anything up either.  

“You called Sosa?” was predictably the first thing out of the boss’ mouth.

“What do you want me to say, Hannibal?  There’s nothing on this guy.  Anywhere else.  She said the FBI doesn’t have anything on him, so either this is his first hit, he’s never worked here in the US...”

“Or somebody’s pulled the record,” Hannibal finished, and considered that for a long moment in silence, ash accumulating at the end of his half-finished cigar.  "Any known associates?"

“Sosa didn’t know.  We can keep reaching out, but...”

"Tell me again why you put him in the van."

Well, the boss was going to get it out of him sooner or later.  "He said the client was a pedophile."

BA looked up from his laptop.  “He was a what?”

“Amy wouldn’t tell us to help a guy like that,” Murdock added.

“It’s what our little buddy said, so...”

“Don’t mean he’s tellin’ the truth.”

“I would, ah, kind of like to find out.  Wouldn’t you?”

Hannibal just looked at him.  "Face, if this is about..."

"A pornographer," Face stressed, because that was just not a conversation he was ever planning on having with the rest of the team.  "Kiddie porn.  Murdock’s got a point.  What the hell is Amy looking at?  What is she digging into?“

"If the client was... that, then more's the reason to walk away from this entire situation.  We are not vigilantes.”

"Who hires a professional killer to..."

"Who cares?" Hannibal growled.  "Pedophile or no, he still killed somebody and we still have the responsibility to turn him over to the cops.  Except now he's seen we're here, so now I have to figure a way out of this goddamn mess!"

"What if it's true?  What if he wasn't working alone?" Face replied, as steady as he could.

“Which one?  The killer or the alleged pedophile?”

And thank god, before they could get any deeper into that crap, before Hannibal could bring up any of _that_ in front of the rest of the team, there was a very distinct noise from the bathroom. Chains on porcelain.

The killer was awake.

+++++

It was Hannibal who started, sitting down on the edge of the bath tub, half-smoked cigar in his fingers.

"Why'd you kill that guy?"

“Straight into it, huh?”

“Just answer the question.”

“Because my services were enlisted to do so,” the guy said, and looked over at Face, who was leaning against the bathroom door, pretending to be relaxed.  “Are we really going to be this stupid about this?  I mean, you think I would go to some random cafe on the ass-end of DC to just randomly kill some dude sitting with an ex Army Ranger?”

And there it was again; the allusion to the past.  Face could almost place it, almost justify it.  He normally had a good memory for faces, but the hunter’s was escaping him.  Even with the fake beard peeled off, something he'd done himself almost the moment he woke up.

"So why'd your employer want him dead?"

"I don't speculate on motives.”

Hannibal chewed on the end of his cigar.  "Try."

"I have a strict client-hunter confidentiality clause in my contract.  I’m only as good as my ability to keep secrets.”  

“Hunter?  You trying to draw some kind of distinction between yourself and a paid assassin?”

“I’m not a hitman.  I find people who are hard to find.  Murder’s only part of the job sometimes, and it costs extra.  I’m more like an amoral private detective.”  He tilted his head.  “Not that different from your team, really.”

"We're not criminals," Face snapped.

“Of course you are,” the hunter snorted.  "You're on the domestic terror watch list.  Still, after all these years.  DHS has been quite insistent on keeping you on it."

Face silently catalogued that.  DHS's internal watch lists were classified.  If that guy had access to that sort of information... or maybe he was bluffing.  But Face fancied himself a pretty good conman, and in his professional opinion, a conman was not what was sitting in front of him.

"No doubt with a Colonel Decker's endorsement on it," Hannibal replied blandly and pointed at his hand, the feathers poking out the end of his white sleeve.  "A little conspicuous, don't you think?"

"Got sick of clients asking me to get naked," the hunter answered in a very reasonable tone of voice, like he was back in that restaurant taking their lunch order.  "Look, I know you guys aren't going to kill me.  It's not your MO.  And you know damn well my level of resistance training is higher than your willingness to torture me.  So why don't we stop this little charade, you cash your checks from that asshole before the feds freeze his bank accounts, and we part ways amicably?  Just like I offered him," and he pointed at Face, "earlier?"

 _How would we know that?_ Face wanted to ask, but this is the boss's game right now.

"Who hired you?"

“Let me guess, you won’t let that one go.”

“You can explain it to me or you can explain it to the FBI,” Hannibal said, quite levelly.  “I hear they’re not actively tracking you, which most likely means they are.  I’ve heard some rumors about this black site they run in the North Sea...”

“It was called the Foundry,” the hunter said thoughtfully, and shrugged.  Shrugged as well as a man could with his arms handcuffed around a toilet bowl.  "Did you ditch my phone?"

"Not quite."  BA was actually trying to hack the thing out in the kitchen.  Not that difficult to do.  Would just take some time.  

"Look, if you go into my contact list..." the hunter began.

But right about then, BA poked his head in the room.  "Hey boss man, can I talk to you?"

Hannibal smiled at the hunter.  “Don’t go anywhere,” but he grabbed face on his way out, too.

BA’s concern hadn’t been over nothing.  There was a text on the phone.  From a number marked _Sailor_.

_Donny honey, you really must remember to let me know when you'll be late to dinner.  Isabela is positively devastated that her coq au vin is drying out_

“Texting back is probably a bad idea,” Hannibal began, smiling a little.

“Not texting is worse,” Face said, “but let’s get the verbiage right.”

So he took the phone back to the bathroom. 

“Do you prefer Donny?” he asked, brandishing the screen.  “Or is it just this guy that calls you that?”

The corners of the guy's mouth quirked up.  Of all the reactions Face was expecting, amusement was not one of them.  "Holy shit, you really don't remember do you?"

"Remember what?"

“Right.  Okay.  What’s my text say?“  He grinned as he said it.  

Face didn't let his own feeling show.  The entire thing was highly unnerving.  "Sounds like you missed a dinner date."

"He misses enough date nights for the both of us.  Does him good to get a little comeuppance sometimes."  The guy tilted his head, messy reddish-blonde hair falling in his eyes.  He did look familiar, but Face can't recall... “But I’ll tell you what.  Text him that the job ran late, and he's welcome to come join me where I am."

"And he would know that how?"

"Like I don't have passive GPS tracking in that phone?  Come on.  I thought you guys were professionals."

Hannibal rubbed his forehead. "Who's your boyfriend?”

The hunter smiled.  “Not boyfriend.  Boss.”

“So who’s your boss?”

“You don’t have to worry about him.  Yet.”  The hunter rattled the shackles.  "He hasn't paid me to kill any of you, and I can probably talk him down from doing something really stupid, but he can be a little unpredictable sometimes.  The chains aren’t going to help your case.  So what do you say we do this like civilized human beings?"

+++++

It turns out Donny's idea of a _civilized human being_ showed up on the doorstep of their safe house not five minutes later, fedora clad, carrying one of those little cloth two-packs of wine.  

Face didn’t recognize him.  Older, bald, a little heavy around the midsection with very nice expensive taste in clothing; a tailored bespoke suit in premium Italian wool, if Face wasn’t mistaken.  His left shoulder was just slightly lower than the right, but it was hard to tell what the issue really was, considering that he had a huge overcoat on.

“Raymond Reddington,” the boss said, voice dangerously low.  “What brings you to my front door?”

“I had a few bottles of 1989 Haut Brion that were taking up excess room in the wine cellar and a figured,” and this was with a disturbingly familiar laugh, “who better to share it with than one of my old classmates while he’s in town.”

“We are not classmates.”

“Still bitter you picked the wrong academy, are we?” Fedora-guy, Reddington, said and handed Face on of the bottles from his little wine store bag.  “Hold that for me, would you?”

For the first time in a long time, Face had absolutely no idea what to say.

Reddington hung his hat on one of the hooks just inside the door, shrugged his jacket off.  He walked in like he owned the place, right down the hall to that bathroom where the hunter was secured.  “Something tells me he’s not going to be thrilled about me having to come fetch him."

+++++

Donald, or whoever the fuck this killer was, didn't actually seem all that put out.  Just held his wrists out with a small smile when Hannibal brandished the key, eyes on Reddington.  "Job's done," he said blandly.

"I know.  Made the local news."

"They get my face on camera?" he asked, and very clearly peeled some kind of clear plastic coating off one of his fingers as he stood, dropping it in the toilet bowl.  A clean patch of pale skin appeared from beneath the blood splatter that was still there from earlier.

So much for prints, Face thought, and mentally kicked himself for not doing it himself while the guy was still out.

"Who knows?  I hear the news is very fake these days."

"Like you haven't called somebody with the Sheriff's Office," Donald replied and started washing his hands.  "You guys mind?"

Face looked at Hannibal, who, despite his impassive face, was definitely worried about this.  "Not our house."

"You guys have pretty good taste in commandeered safe houses, I gotta say," Donald said, finished up and wiping his hands.  "Where'd you leave the wine?"

"Umm..."

"Kitchen," Reddington supplied.

Donald moved past the former Rangers, and Face couldn't remember a time when he'd felt less in control of what was going on.  What was with these two?

"Didn't you two go to one of those delightful little training schools together?" Reddington asked as he sauntered back into the living room at the front of the rowhouse, looking square at the hunter, where he was casually uncorking that bottle of wine in the main floor kitchen.  "You haven't mentioned how adorable he was."

"Six weeks in the woods being fake tortured kills the libido." 

"Such a pity.  It would be quite the scene to..."

Hannibal coughed.  He's obviously struggling to keep this thing on an even keel.  "Face?"

"Umm..."

"Advanced SERE training, I believe it was," Reddington said, as the hunter came over to with a hand full of cabernet glasses.  "Back when you were still being routed through all those black ops courses, I would presume."

"Well how else were they going to get you dead?" Donald replied.  Ruby liquid splashed into cut crystal.  He'd gone for the absentee owner's good stuff, Face noticed.  Donald divied it up with practiced efficiency.  "No good having an untrained hit squad."

"I can't say you were all that effective..."

"Oh please.  The head of the foreign affairs liaison office was in your pocket.  That's why the intel sucked, and that's why we never got you."  He sat down on the couch opposite Reddington, half a cushion away from Face, sipping at his own glass.  "Guess you guys would know a thing or two about crooked intel operatives."

Hannibal shifted imperceptibly, and Face couldn't meet his eyes.  How the fuck did these guys know about the Lynch situation?  Did they know?  But as much as Face wanted to ask, he held it back.  It was bait, and obvious bait at that.  

BA, however, wasn't always so discreet.  "You another Lynch?"

Donald swirled his wine around before taking a sip.  The handcuffs had left marks on his wrists that weren't fading.  the muscles of his hand made the ink on his skin flex oddly.  He still had blood under his fingernails.  "I'd rather be real-tortured than work for the Agency," Donald replied, like he was speaking from a place of experience, and looked over at Reddington.  "Wouldn't you agree, Red?"

Reddington smiled.  "I do have fond memories of that two weeks I spent in a North Korean jail.  There was this one guard, very nice fellow, spoke not a lick of English but always-"

"Can we get back on topic?" Hannibal asked, grabbing the reins of the conversation and yanking.  Hard.  "Like why you," he pointed at Reddington, "asked him," his finger moved to the hunter, "to kill that guy?"

"What difference does it make?  He was dealing in kiddie porn.  Donny, you're a fed..."

"Ex Fed.  Why do you always lead with that?"

"I love a good villain origin story," Reddington quipped.  "And you boys love watching the breed of asshole get beat to death in prison.  Don't lie, I know you do."

Donald snorted, but didn't protest it.  

"What happened to the rule of law?" BA asked.

"Says the guy who's still wanted for breaking out of a military prison."

Face could feel something hard forming in his chest, old memories pounding away, demanding attention.  It had nothing to do with this Donald guy, except it did, because SERE was no joke, especially the high capture risk course that they were in.  He could remember almost the entire course, but couldn't remember much about the guy sitting next to him.  Only thing he could figure was that whoever this was, he had to be a different person back then.

Whoever he was now, this Reddington guy had him trained.

"Well, this has been some pleasant reminiscing about the good old days, but Donald, we should be getting back," he said, and reached out to pat Donald's knee.  The younger man got up immediately, going over to the door to retrieve Reddington's greatcoat.  Reddington stood himself, leaving his half-finished glass of thousand dollar wine just perched on the coffee table.  "I have a very important appointment with a senator in the morning.  If you'll say goodbye to your old training buddies..."

"You haven't answered my question," Hannibal said.

Reddington stopped near the door, Donald silently pulling back.  The friendly pretense finally dropped away, and in its place was cold authority.  "Let me give you some advice, you and that blogger friend of yours, about the story she's been working on," the criminal said coolly.  "People have been killed for less, while other people have gotten away with far more.  If you like the lives you're living now, you'll walk away from this.  All of you."

Hannibal crossed his arms.  "Is that a threat?"

"Won't be me, John.  But it will be somebody.  And I assure you, it will be far less fun than if it was me.  But Donny, why don't you say we get going?  Dinner will be positively dried out by now."

"We could always stop for Arby's," the hunter deadpanned, as he helped Reddington back into his coat.  Face noticed the odd deadness in the movement of his left arm, and filed that away.

"I know you're joking but it's not helping," Reddington said.

"Oh come on.  You can eat the food of the normal people every once in a while..."

"Have I ever told you that your inbred backcountry ways are insufferably pedestrian?"

And with that, they were out the door, and gone.

For a little while, silence reigned in the safehouse.

"Who the fuck was that?" BA finally asked.

Hannibal sighed, and went back to the living room.  "Is there any of that whiskey left over from last night?"

There wasn't, it turned out, but Reddington had left that open wine, plus another bottle.  No point in letting it go to waste, Face figured, and that Reddington guy had good taste; the stuff was sublime.  Hannibal accepted the refill with something approaching resignation, and Face sat down next to him, hand on his thigh.

"Who was that, boss?"

"Raymond Reddington," Murdock replied.  He'd been uncharacteristically silent the entire time the man had been in their space.  "You know him, bossman?"

"You know him?"

"Rumors get around the CIA pretty quick," Murdock said in a low voice.  "When I was flyin' back then.  He's a drug smuggler, right?"

"He smuggles everything.  Personality like that, but he's very discreet.  Pops up every once in a while, but I haven't heard about him in years.  I honestly thought he was in prison."  Hannibal looked pensive. "He was reported to be in prison a couple years back."

"Want me to look into it?" Face asked.

"No.  Les we have to deal with Reddington, the better.  We'll check in with Amy tomorrow, make sure she's okay."

"If what he said true, Amy could be in trouble right now," BA piped up, in that quiet way of his.  "Boss, we should go check on her.  She ain't that far."

Murdock nodded. "And it ain't so late it'd raise anybody's wonderings if we wandered down there."

"Why don't I just call her?" Face said as he dialed her number.

She was fine, she said.  Perfectly safe, as far as she could tell, she said, didn't need their help, she insisted.  But she did promise to meet up with them for breakfast, and that, Hannibal said, was enough time wasted on the subject for the night.

+++++

On the surface, the job had been no more insane than any other.  No more important than any of Reddington's other requests.  _Donald, be a dear and kill this bastard for me_.  Usually Red left the profanity out.  

Ressler's usual response for that sort of thing was usually _pound sand_ or _how much are you willing to pay me for it_.

That time, he actually looked into the proposed target.

On paper, the target looked like a decent human being.  Didn't mean anything.  In Ressler's experience, what people looked like on paper was rarely an accurate reflection of who they were.  But in this guy's case, the sewage was barely beneath the surface.

On paper, the target worked for a daycare.  The JB Andrews CDC, to be exact.

But despite the background check requirements, that GS-9 paycheck wasn't his primary source of income.  That actually came from a couple of random businesses he owned via some holding company in downtown DC, which were so obviously money-laundering operations Ressler couldn't believe OSI hadn't caught it yet.

One of said operations was a photography studio.

 

Specializing in child portraits.  Discounts given to inner city DC schools and their low-income families.

Red hated DC, so Ressler had gone up alone for a weekend to do a little midnight investigation.  

After some of the stills he pulled off the target's computer, he had absolutely no issue helping Reddington out with this one.  With one stipulation.

"You're going to tell me why when I get back," he'd warned.  "How this guy got on your radar."

"I have to have a reason for ridding the world of human scum?"

"Even you aren't this altruistic.  And he's not that important."

"It's a favor for somebody from the old days," Red had told him.

Probably a lie - there were very few of Reddington's classmates or former shipmates who were willing to put up with him - but then, most of them were of grandparent age.  It was entirely possible that somebody had a kid stationed at Andrews, who had a grandchild enrolled at that CDC.  

And even if that wasn't the case, even if Reddington was lying, no kid deserved this shit.  Not the military brats from Andrews.  Not the kids from PS-whatever downtown. 

That had only left the question of how to execute the mission.

Ressler's first instinct, ironically enough, was to make it public.  Shooting a guy in broad daylight on a city street would have certainly attracted press attention, which would have invited a Metro Homicide full investigation and FBI inquiry.  Normally, he'd avoid that sort of thing, but a full investigation was warranted in this case, on the off chance the target had any accomplices.  But it was still risking a lot of exposure, and Ressler wasn't so arrogant as to think that he could get away without a single shred of physical evidence or witness identification.

So blatant murder had been out.

Didn't mean he had intended to make it look like an accident.  Didn't mean he couldn't still send a message.  The guy had clients, didn't he, Ressler had figured.  Backers?  Potential partners? 

Fuck him.  And fuck all those potential clients and backers and partners.

So he'd come up with his plan, and it had been a very good plan, and it worked swimmingly, except somewhere in all his surveillance and research and planning he'd completely missed the very small detail that this guy had the A-Team wrapped around his little finger.

Which meant - last minute, standing in the back kitchen of the small Amish restaurant the target frequented three times a week and had been stupid easy to infiltrate - Ressler had had to improvise.

"It's not my fault," he told Reddington on the drive back to Virginia.  "The target must have just hired those guys.  It looked like an initial meet.  I don't even know how he got in contact with them, since I didn't see any of the usual signs."

"He was talking to that Amy Allen woman.  Probably got to them through her," Reddington said impassively, and then winced.  "Dear boy, would you mind pulling over for a moment?"

Ressler looked over.  The other man's face was pale.  "Sure.

It took a few minutes to get off the interstate and find a secluded enough patch of dark road for Reddington's comfort, but actually dealing with the problem was easy enough.  Ressler helped Reddington ease out of overcoat and suit jacket, and unbutton his tailored shirt enough to reach the harness underneath.  His undershirt was soaked with sweat.

"You know you don't have to wear this thing out when we're not meeting your underworld buddies," Ressler said, as he undid the support harness, then powered off the tiny magnetic locks holding the prosthetic arm's contact surfaces to the myoelectric implants in Reddington's shoulder.  "I know how much it itches."

Reddington almost groaned with relief as Ressler slid the appendage, complete with false sleeve, off his stump.  The skin was definitely irritated; a combination of the weight and the electrical current from the contact surfaces.  Even the most advanced tech had its drawbacks.  The problem with enhanced articulation in the finger joints was a greater need for nerve interfaces.  Taking in the skin discoloration, Ressler made a mental note to get back in touch with the lab at MIT.  

Reddington was funding a number of research grants right now through shell companies for this very purpose, but it was the Aussie kid, military brat himself, who was putting out the best work.  That kid gave it as good as he got from Reddington, too smart for his own damn good, which was probably why he was making such good progress.  Maybe they could go see him that week.  Get some tweaks done to the new model. 

"A lost arm is a lost arm," Reddington said brusquely, as Ressler folded the short sleeve back down and buttoned it closed, "and showing weakness in front of a man like Hannibal Smith is not a good idea."

"I thought the A-Team were the good guys."

"They are.  That's what makes them so problematic."  Ressler starting buttoning his shirt back up.  "It's what makes them dangerous.  Smith's still lost in that god and country foolishness.  Never trust somebody like that."

And oh yeah, sure.  Ressler knew the A-Team.  And not just the team.  _Templeton Peck_.  Even without the later notoriety he'd earned himself, Ressler would have remembered him.  Guy was a grade-a master liar, worse than Reddington and far more likable, without the usual underlying pathology.  No, Peck was one of the only con-men Ressler had ever met who wasn't a sociopath, who seemed like a _normal fucking person_ under all the bravado.  Normal emotions.  Normal reactions.  Even during the resistance piece, where nothing they did to him had phased him in the slightest, but a couple of the scenarios that involved other people in their group, well. 

Course rules got rewritten, because of Peck’s actions that one night.  Or so went the rumor. But the Army had still passed him.

Ressler just knew the guy had some issue.  Some kind of personality disorder.  Something.  Peck was no doubt crazier than that CIA-addled pilot of theirs.  It was statistically impossible for that not to be the case.

And Smith trusted him as his number two. Had kept him around for over a decade.  That said something about a man; Ressler just wasn’t sure yet what that something was.

"So you and, uhh, Hannibal Smith know each other?"

"He was a few years behind me at West Point.  We had some summer training together once, kept in touch for a long time."

"Until you decided to leave."  Ressler never knew what to call it, Reddington's... decision to leave.  The man had never told him why he'd left the Navy, not really, nor why he decided to take a king's random of classified intelligence with him when he did.  Reddington also got very touchy at the word "desertion".

"He got burned too.  You think it would make him a little less righteous, but that's the Army for you."

 _Burned_?  Ressler wanted to ask, but knew better than to push.  "You good?"

"Yes, let's get out of this godforsaken city."

Reddington was quiet for most of the two hour drive back to where they were staying, some vacation home in the countryside with plenty of land around and no neighbors for a comfortable distance.  Ressler had plenty of questions burning in the back of his mind, but the silence gave him enough time to formulate a proper inquiry.

"I'm not killing Amy Allen for you," he commented, as they were pulling into the massive garage.  "So don't even think about asking."

"I wouldn't."

"But you don't want her reporting on whatever it is she's digging up."  Reddington was silent.  Ressler threw the car into park, and looked at him.  "This doesn't have to do with one of your business interests, does it?  Because if you're dealing in kids, Red, I swear-"

But he didn't get a chance to finish the sentence, because Reddington was out of the car and slamming the door to the house before he could get the words out.

Ressler found his man exactly where he expected to; in the bathroom, struggling with his shirt.  Red had adjusted fairly quickly to things after the amputation, but it hadn't been easy.  The strain of the injury had been immense, the follow-on health complications unavoidable.  He had always worn the myth of his invincibility like armor, and while the prosthetic was good enough to keep the pretense up for others, Ressler could see the cracks.  It didn't help that there were just some basic tasks, like getting dressed, that he simply could not do alone.

Neither one of them was particularly comfortable with that level of dependence - Red, because he was Red, and Ressler, because Red had always been this larger than life figure, threatening warlords and wrapping entire intelligence agencies around his finger, and the reminder of his humanity was somehow painful.  So they'd arrived early on at an unspoken agreement to just never mention it.  Red never asked, and Ressler never offered, but he knew where he was needed.

"You know, this shit would be easier if you trusted me," Ressler said quietly, as he helped his boss divest himself of his clothes.  "If you let me in.  You can't run this organization on your own forever.  I need to know where the bodies are buried."

"Literal or figurative?"

"You know what I mean."  
"Is this where you tell me you see the value in what I've built?"

"No, this thing is a fortress you've built up to protect yourself.  From whatever it is you stole..."  
"We've been over this.  I didn't take anything.  I don't know what the Fulcrum is..."

"...or whoever you pissed off, yeah, I've heard this before," Ressler finished.  "I can't help if I don't know."

Reddington looked more tired than Ressler had seen him in a long, long time, wearing nothing now but his boxers, as he went for the bathrobe on the back of the door.  "You don't want to know, Donald."  
"I'm not as fragile as you think I am."

"No, but looking at evil eats something in your soul.  And you've still got some soul left," Reddington told him, coming back over.  He gripped Ressler's chin with his good hand, tilting his face.  "I'd prefer you keep that."

"That's bullshit and you know it," Ressler replied, irritated, and pushed him away.

"You did the world a favor today, Donald.  If the A-Team doesn't deal with their pet blogger, I'll go have a chat with her.  Now do me a favor and come to bed."

Ressler didn't always go.  Reddington didn't always offer.  But he was sore from spending half the day on some damn bathroom floor, and he didn't always trust himself to be alone on the nights after he dropped somebody, mark or not, and it was always too quiet in these damn borrowed houses.

Still.  He was actually pretty hungry, and there was that Amy Allen woman to think about.

He wouldn't put it past Red to go around his back and kill the woman anyway.

"I'm going to go make myself a sandwich," he said.  "Join you after?"

"That's fine," and Red gave him own more pat on the cheek.  "And thank you.  This was important."

That was more than Red usually offered, so Ressler took it with a nod and headed back downstairs.

Roast beef and rye bread, with just a little bit of insanely expensive hand-ground mustard, was always a good choice.  
Amy Allen's blog was, well.

Interesting.  To say the least.  Another one of those freelancer journalists who rode the line between conspiracy nutcase and investigative reporter.  A number of pieces on the A-Team, which implied some kind of personal connection.

But poking around in Reddington's secrets was never as much fun as trying to drag them out of the man, and Ressler had seen enough of his political enemies to think twice about digging into anything even remotely connected to Washington DC.

Not a huge deal.

He sent off a text to their grad student at MIT instead.  Calibration appointment.  No point in letting that issue fester.


	2. Chapter 2

Face finally stopped pretending to sleep around zero-five.  

It was dark out then, the master bedroom in the borrowed house untouched by any light, the scent of the sheets familiar in their novelty.  That was a scent Face hadn’t picked out himself, but he was the person who’d found the house - like always, logistics always fell to him - but he’d gotten used to that.

He hadn’t grown up with anything approaching a family, a home.  Hannibal was anchor enough.  Hannibal was the only anchor he’d ever had.

Of all the things left over from his years before the Army, Face hated the dreams the most.  Everything else - the panic attacks, the fear, the guilt, the _need_ to obey - he’d gotten under control years back.  He’d been fine with everything in prison; hell, all that shit probably helped him get through it easier.  The dreams though, the dreams had never gone away.  Hannibal’s presence helped, but never made it go away.

He edged closer, chilled, whether from the nightmares or the January morning, he wasn’t sure.  The boss’s body he knew almost better than his own; he’d made a study over it in the decades they’d been together.  Most things, he’d been able to shake.  Not that.

Hannibal had always been more important to him.  In a different life...

“What are you thinking about, sweetheart?”

Face breathed out, trying to untangle the knot forming in his stomach.  “Nothing, boss,” he murmured

Hannibal sighed, and laid a hand on his cheek, thumb tracing his jaw.  “Temp, sweetheart, we’ve talked about this.  We can’t save everybody.  We don’t even know what’s really going on here.”

Face turned into the touch, spreading his body out against Hannibal’s, wanting Hannibal closer.  The team might have had an understanding about who they all were and what they all wanted, but while Murdock and BA joined them sometimes, Face always slept right there, next to their commander.  Ever since that first week when Hannibal, a fresh-minted lieutenant colonel, had rather hesitantly offered him a room at his house while Face, still an E-4 and fresh out of the Schoolhouse, looked for an apartment.

Face hadn’t bothered looking.

Hannibal knew what he was doing, but didn’t fuck him that first night.  No, Hannibal had been good, let him have his own room and everything.  That had lasted about forty-eight hours before the boss gave in and took him in the shower after morning PT.

It had been a relief for Face.  He was pretty sure it was a relief for Hannibal too.  He’d never understood why it had taken the man that long.

Then, years later, he shook his head against the pillows.  “John, if there are kids...”

“We are gonna talk to Amy, okay?  If she’s been working on something we can do something about, we will.”  Hannibal ran a hand into Face’s hair.  “I don’t want you torturing yourself with this.”

“I know boss, you just... you always hear things about shit that goes on in this town, and...”

“We are gonna talk to Amy,” Hannibal repeated, and leaned in, kissing his throat.  “In an hour.”

Face nodded.  Hannibal chuckled and kissed him again.  

“You sure you’re up for it, my boy?”

Hannibal almost never asked.  They’d been together long enough to know where the boundaries were, what was and wasn’t good, who needed what and when.  And what Face needed - _needed_ , in that broken little corner of his soul - was to not have to make decisions like that.  He trusted Hannibal not to hurt him, and that was as much control over the situation as he could bear to have.

“Just fuck me, Boss.”

Hannibal’s hands swept over him.  “You’re in some bad headspace right now.”

“Make love to me, John,” Face breathed out into Hannibal’s mouth, and wrapped his arms around his shoulders, holding on.

 That was all the encouragement the boss needed.

+++++

Half an hour later, body sated but mind still reeling, Face sauntered downstairs, running shoes in hand.  He’d told Hannibal he just needed to get some air, which Hannibal knew was bullshit but generously didn’t call him out on.  

Sex was grounding, sure.  But it didn’t change the fact that the dreams were stil rattling around.

They needed to check up on Amy.

Before somebody else did.

“Rough night, Faceman?”

Murdock.  Making tea in the kitchen, and Face only had to half-fake the smile he gave his teammate.  “Yeah, you know.  Knives.”  

“Knives are messy.  Blood everywhere,” Murdock agreed, and cocked his head.  “So you know that Donny guy from last night?”

“He seems to think so.  We all cycled through so many courses at Bragg back in the day, he could have been in any one of the ones I was at.”

“You think he was tellin’ the truth?  About the pedo shit?”    

That knot in his chest was back, tightening again.  “I have no idea.  But we’re gonna find out.”  He sat down, shoved his feet into his shoes.  “We’re meeting her at eight, right?”

“Yup.”

“You heard from her this morning?”

“Faceman, it’s not even six.”

Face nodded.  “Good.  I’ve got plenty of time for my run.”

Back in the day, Face had loved going TDY to Washington DC.  Special Forces bases weren’t located in garden spots, and forward operating locations downrange were often shockingly bare-bones.  There had always been something seductive about DC, the wealth and the power that seemed to hide in every brownstone and peer from every steel and glass tower.  It always seemed best at dawn or dusk, the light helping the city hide.  He’d loved it from the first time he’d seen the place, accompanying Hannibal on a rare summons to appear before the House Arms Services Committee on some closed-door session about black ops, or some nonsense like that.

Normally, Face would risk a run down through the block of marble buildings north of the White House, down to the National Mall and the war memorials that ringed it.  That morning, however, he went south and west out of Georgetown instead, down through the old neighborhoods and out to Arlington.

Where Amy’s townhouse was.

Face didn’t put much stock in intuition, but he knew criminal organizations, human trafficking rings.  

If that’s what they were dealing with, if Amy had stumbled into something big, big enough to put up with some pedophile photographer, well.  He didn’t have Hannibal’s faith that she’d be okay.

It was a risk going to her place, but Face didn’t care.  It was on a quiet street in a quiet neighborhood, and there weren’t any security cameras.  

He knew exactly where she lived, where the doors were, the combination to her security system.  They’d been keeping tabs on her for a while; she was a good ally, almost like their own personal PA officer, and nobody on the team ever wanted their work to negatively affect her.  She’d gone from just blogging on their exploits to actively campaigning to have their court martials overturned.  They hadn’t had much face time with her, though, and Face was pretty sure she’d be pissed about this.

He was so sure about this that he considered just going back as he reached her street, but then he noticed her blinds were open in her second-story loft.  The lights weren’t on, but the sun was coming up just enough for him to see inside.

She had bookcases that were visible from the street (or BA’s van, but still).

The bookcases weren’t there.

The street was empty of people, the normal DC smattering of compact cars parked along both edges.  He car wasn’t among them.  No vans, no moving trucks.  Same with the alley.  Face took it all in quickly as he let himself in the back gate into the tiny little yard.  He didn’t have a lock-picking kit on him, and was loathe to break in, but looking in the wide back window, his blood went cold.

Her entire first floor was empty.  Completely, utterly empty.

“Fuck,” he muttered, and pulled his pre-pay out of the zip pocket on his exercise pants.

His first call was to Hannibal.

His second was to Sosa.

“Do you have any idea what time it is where I...”

“That guy we had last night, his first name is Donald.  Something the underworld calls a hunter.  He’s some kind of ex-fed or ex-military.  Not CIA.”

“I am not going to stick my neck out for you on this.”

“Just try, okay?  A friend’s missing.”

Maybe Donald had something to do with this.  Maybe he didn’t.  But right then, Face didn’t have anything else to work with.

Well.  

Donald, and Raymond Reddington’s suit.

+++++

Face wasn't as much of a clotheshound as his team gave shit for being.  But he knew his suits. There were only a few places on the entire East Coast that did quality bespoke commissions, and only one place in DC that had millinery expertise as well.

"And you keep bitching that my clothing habit is useless," Face smiled, as a young salesman welcomed them into the warm, snug store front with coffee.

Hannibal just looked pained. But he played his part.

Face was the one who typically took point when there was a story to spin; Hannibal had spent far too long in the military to ever fully erase that part of his demeanor, but in a place like DC, it worked. Plenty of retired colonels and generals doing contract lobbying work or whatnot, so having one come in with his aide to discuss the particulars of a tuxedo commission wasn't exactly unusual. Face chatted up a storm, Hannibal stayed mostly silent, and finally, the desire to make a sale overrode discretion.

That was the point when Face oh-so-innocently brought up the hunter. 

“You know, a friend of mine recommended this place to me, and I have to say, he wasn’t wrong.”

“Oh yeah?  What friend was that?”

“Donald, you know, the guy with the great ink on his arm.”

"Donald! Yes, we love him, and his boyfriend. They're the sweetest couple. Act like a couple of old married biddies but you just know they're so in love."

"Raymond, right?"

"Yup, that's right."

Out of all of it, before the shop keeper came out and shut the sales guy up, Face was able to wheedle two very important pieces of information; that Raymond Reddington indeed had an account at the store, and he had just placed a strange order.

"Longer sleeve on the left side by a couple of inches. He's been getting them short and buttoned the last few times. Rush job this time too, which my manager wasn't happy about, but they aren't going in be in Boston that long, you know?"

"Amputation," Hannibal said flatly, after they got out of the shop. "That's what that's about."

"Raymond Reddington's missing an arm?"

"Has to be. No other reason for something like that."

"He had both hands when we saw him last night. Seemed like his left... oh."

"What?"

"I did notice something odd about it. But that kind of tech, boss... they don't have prosthetics that advanced yet, do they? Like some kind of Vader arm?"

The morning was chilly, getting colder; more snow was probably on its way. Hannibal tucked his scarf deeper into the long overcoat Face had made him wear for this little outing. "Do not mention that to Murdock," the boss warned. 

Face grinned. "So Boston, huh?"

"I don't know..."

"I can go myself, if you guys want to keep up the search for Amy here."

Hannibal stopped them, right there on the cold sidewalk, hand on Face's elbow. "Are you going to be okay?"

 _Not really_ , Face thought, but just kept smiling. "It's been a long time since I had a panic attack, boss."

"This human trafficking thing..."

"Do you think Reddington's in on it?"

Hannibal shook his head. "I don't know. I've never heard of it, but who knows? It's been a long time since I last heard anything about him through the grapevine."

 _Through the service academy grapevine,_ Face thought, and he didn't need to look at Hannibal's face to know where the pain lay there. Since the court martial, most of Hannibal's friends had cut contact, at least officially. Some people genuinely believed they were guilty of the theft, but it seemed like others just couldn't have the liability. 

"Let me go to Boston. See what I can dig up."

"If it makes you feel better kid, go for it."

And that was about the time Sosa called back.

But what she had to say didn't make Face feel any better.

+++++

“So the weight distribution...”

“Yeah, like I said on the phone, mate, I got it fixed. Just let me close it up okay, and you can get going. Didn't tell me when you were dropping by.”  

Two days of waiting, and the arm looked exactly the same as when Ressler had dropped it off. Except, like, in pieces.

Maybe that was the point. But he knew what a brat their bought-and-paid-for grad student could be.

"Right. Because I want to risk the cops showing up."

"Fuck the cops. Mr. Reddington got my visa extended. It's the least I can do."

It was the least the kid could do. Ressler agreed with him on that. In fact, it was the entire reason why they'd gotten him set up like this in the first place.

Visiting the kid at the lab was tricky, security cameras and all, and the dorms were even worse.  After he’d come out with the first prototype, Reddington had gotten him a place off campus.  It wasn’t a big apartment, but more than enough for a boy who, by his own admission, spent most of his childhood on military bases and camping in the Outback and was used to rough living.

There wasn’t much to the little studio, and the living space seemed even more cramped with the way the kid had his work benches and tables spread around.  His laptop - another gift from Red - sat open on the sofa.

Huh.  
“Browsing the dark web?” Ressler asked, turning the screen around.

“What?” The kid asked innocently.

He was double majoring in computer science. Like he didn't fucking know what the dark web was. Ressler rolled his eyes. "You use it for finding prostitutes, things like that.”

“No, no, who’s got money for that shit?  Porn’s cheaper.”

Ressler scrolled down the page.  It was some rough-form text layout, dated the night of the Amish restaurant hit, actually, speckled with a number of symbols he recognized, excerpted from what looked like business signs.  He’d never worked that particular desk at the FBI, but he knew what it was.

“What’s with the pedo symbols, then?” he asked.

The kid stiffened.  “Nothing.”

“Look, man, I don’t care what you’re into...”

“Oi, I’m not into that shit!” he snapped.  “It’s fuckin’ conspiracy nuts on the Internet.  Some dick anon’s been answering questions about some murders in DC.  You know, like the one the other day at that Amish restaurant?”

Huh. Ressler couldn’t remember seeing that on the news. That wasn't good, if he was making the news. He made a note to get back with their police contact to see if his face had gotten captured by some camera.  “What murder was that?”

“Somebody related to some child trafficking ring.  The anon’s got all kinds of shit to say about it.  You know they don’t even always take the kids away from their families?  They just brainwash them and use them at night and the kids never report the abuse cause they don’t remember it.”

Donald scrolled down the page.  One of the text boxes - seriously, what was this fucking site? - had a number of blue-letter web addresses.  

Archive links to a photo sharing site.

Three of them were street views of the photography studio.

“So this is a load of bullshit, is what you’re saying?”

“Those are real symbols.  They’re on the FBI portal.”

Ressler snorted.  “Yeah, I get that.  But who is this person who posted all this crap?”

The kid sighed.  “Some LARPer.  Said they had proof of something big, but they didn’t release it when they said they would. Those are the last posts they made. Nothing since then.”

“Huh.”

“Yeah,” their little robotics genius said, and held out the arm, closed up and put back together.  “I took some of the ballast out.

Giving it a heft, Ressler nodded. It felt lighter. Not as heavy as a real arm, but that was the point. "Thanks. This feels better."

"Glad to help," the kid said, hesitating. “Don?”

“Yeah?”

“Does that shit really go on?”

Human trafficking was the one thing that, to the best of Ressler's knowledge, Red wasn't involved in. Other than that adoption agency case, and the bitch who was selling kids on the side, Ressler couldn't recall ever seeing the master criminal even marginally connected to it. That couldn't be a matter of ethics, could it? Red wasn't exactly the ethical type; even when he did something seemingly altruistic, there was usually a business excuse. 

Not that Ressler was going to tell their pet grad student any of that.

"Let me put it this way, if you want something bad enough and you’ve got the money, you can get it.”

“That’s pretty fucked up.”

"The world's a fucked up place."

The kid nodded, like this was a revelation, and turned his music back on. 

Ressler showed himself out.

He'd come alone, Red making some vague references to conference calls he needed to make, which meant he had a rare afternoon to himself. Red didn't have anything that needed doing, other than this, so Ressler felt no obligation to hurry back to the downtown loft where they were staying this week. He wandered back down through the MIT campus, watching the students hurrying to class through the cold January morning, enjoying the sting of the winter breeze on his face. There was a little cafe on the other side of campus that generally had good food, cheap and quick, and Ressler was just sitting down when his whole nice day off got blown to fuck.

"Hey, Donny."

Peck.

Standing there in ass-hugging hipster jeans and a scarf that was at least three times bigger than it needed to be. Grinning.

Great.

+++++

"I wish I could say this is a nice surprise," Donald said, after Face had placed his order with the very interested waitress, "but I really wasn't planning on a second meeting."

"First one enough for you?"

"That shit is my business."

"Business," Face repeated.

"Yeah, business."

"I assume you're here on business too? Unless that kid back there..."

"Red's funding his graduate project. Well, Red's funding half the department, but mostly for that kid."

"What would a guy like Raymond Reddington want with a robotics lab?"

The hunter tugged down the corner of his tie from where it was trying to escape his open suit coat. "I think the real question here is, what do you want with me?"

Face looked out across the college green, students hustling into class against the biting January wind. "You said you're a private detective, right?"

"And I said we basically do the same thing. So there's nothing I can offer that you can't..."

"I don't have any background in forensic investigation techniques," Face interrupted. "I'm guessing you do."

Donald shrugged. "If you say so."

"I'm not trying to pry here, man, but I see you murder a guy in cold blood and your boss tells me you used to be on some kind of hit squad..."

"That is an absolute exaggeration of the facts. Don't ever take anything that man says seriously," Donald said, and then sighed. "What do you want?"

"Help." Face handed him the iPad with its photos of Amy's townhouse. "Two days ago that blogger who put us up to your, err, last job disappeared."

Donald frowned, but took the tablet, scrolling through the photos slowly. Image after image of the empty apartment, the little bits and pieces of moving tape strewn about, the dirty carpet and paper plates left in the sink. "You realize crap like this doesn't happen, right?"

"Excuse me?"

"When was the last time you talked to her?"

"Umm, Tuesday night. After..."

"Right. And she was okay?"

"Sounded fine."

"And I'm guessing you're thinking that this is related to the job?"

"Possibly..."

"Professionals don't do stuff like this," Donald said, and handed the tablet back. "This doesn't look staged. The carpet's intact. No telltale discolorations on the walls or tile. It's just messy. She either moved out herself, or amateurs did it. You should file a missing persons report."

"Your boss..."

"He's not my boss."

"He mentioned that somebody was going to come after her. Who?"

"Look, I take jobs from Red every once in a while. He likes my work and it saves him the trouble of having to keep a hunter on retainer. He doesn't trust me and I don't trust him. He sure as hell doesn't confide in me. If you want to me to ask him, he's going to give me some bullshit cryptic answer and then find a way to get you guys back in jail." Donald leaned back in his chair. "He probably won't kill you, but it's a risk."

"What, he'd have you do it?"

"I don't take jobs like that," Donald replied. 

"Would you be interested in a job involving a lost blogger?"

"Look, Peck, what I'm trying to tell you is that somebody kidnapped her, dumped her body in the woods and is fencing her stuff somewhere in Baltimore right now. Probably some nutcase stalker."

"Even if that's the case..."

"That is the case."

"I don't leave people behind." He pushed the tablet back across the table. "Or can you not find a body in the woods?"

"Okay, so typically I have a weekly retainer, plus the flat rate for when I find the target..."

"Yeah, don't have that kind of money," Face said blandly.

"Well, this was a complete waste of my time..."

"Donald Ressler, age thirty-seven, born in buttfuck nowhere Montana, graduated Northwestern University with a bachelor's in Criminal Law, went to work for the FBI as a special agent right out of the gate. You worked the organized crime desk for three or four years before being recruited onto a special task force, assigned to hunt down and assassinate Raymond Reddington. Five years with no success, the other guys retired, deceased now, and the Bureau kept you on as its lead for the Reddington task force... how am I doing so far?"

Donald didn't say anything, but his complexion wasn't helping his reaction; he was going white. "That's not exactly private information. "

"Except it is," Face replied, hoping he's getting these details right. He'd gone over the info three or four times on the drive up, committing it to memory. "Because the FBI wiped your record. Because about, oh, four or five years ago Raymond Reddington walked into the FBI headquarters and surrendered himself. To your task force. And you were his handler, until you mysteriously disappeared and dropped off the radar entirely, only to resurface in Europe with connections to some high level underworld hits and how in the hell does a guy like you end up like this?"

"It's complicated."

"I'm sure it is. I'm also sure that the FBI having you listed as killed in the line of duty is a great comfort to everybody, including your parents."

"My parents have nothing to do..."

"What do you think would be worse? Your mom finding out you're still alive, or your dad learning you play bottom boy for the worst traitor in recent history?"

Face hadn't wanted to go there. But information was there to be used, and fuck this guy anyway. Who just up and deserts like that?

"Your genius plan is to blackmail me?"

Face smirked. 

"This is a really stupid plan," Donald said, and yawned. "Like, really stupid. Do you have any idea how many bodies are buried out in the woods?"

"I'm guessing you do."

"We certainly aren't friends." He took out his phone, unlocking the screen with a few swipes of his phone, and stood up. "I'll be in touch."

"No, you do this with us."

Donald pulled his coat off the back of the chair, swinging it on. His suit shifted just enough to make the shoulder holster visible. "I have a delivery to make this afternoon, but I can be down there at her house tomorrow..."

"Tonight," Face said firmly. "And for the record, I do have your mom's cell phone."

"Fine, tonight."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So long in between updates. Sorry about that!


	3. Chapter 3

"You're late," Red commented without looking up as Ressler ducked into the box at the Boston Opera House. “You almost missed the start of the first act.”

It was a grand old Baroque Revival building, marble and gold and rich red velvet, all things that soothed Reddington’s hedonistic little heart. Plus, Ressler had taken the time to stop off and grab his tux. Reddington had fucked him right in their box, in the middle of _Carmen_ , last time he’d worn that tux. He’d have thought the old man would be in a better mood. He'd seemed awful excited about this production of _Swan Lake_.

But whatever. 

Ressler had had the goddamn A-Team threaten to tell Mom he was an international assassin, all because they’d shown up in the middle of a hit Reddington had asked him to carry out. And Reddington had decided that since Swan Lake was on in town, they _positively had to go see it, I remember the prima ballerina from her days in the Moscow company..._

Yeah. If anybody had the right to be a grumpy bastard right now, it was him. And he wasn’t being a bitch about it, was he? He’d even brought the new arm.

Not that Ressler was going to say any of that. Some things just weren’t worth uttering.

"I've got a job to work,” he replied instead.

"Yes, I got that text.  We need to have a serious conversation about you taking clients right now."

That gave Ressler a moment of pause.  Red actually looked rather pensive and wasn’t that unusual?

“Do we have a problem I need to know about?”

Reddington just gave him a look, and turned his attention back down to the stage below, where the orchestra was warming up. “How was our little Aussie robotics prodigy? He give you any of that adorable sass of his?”

"This job’s for a friend, Red. I need to do this.” The blackmail, Ressler knew, was something Reddington probably could have taken care of. But Hannibal Smith was a hard bastard, so who could really say? Better safe than sorry. “I don’t think it’s going to take that long.”

"What friend?"

“You’re not the only guy who knows people,” Ressler said.

“A friend in DC?”

“I know you hate the place, but I’m just going to be back down there for a few days,” Ressler said, and leaned over the arm of his chair. “So, what’s this one about?”

“It’s about doomed love,” Reddington said absently. Without giving him any shit about not knowing his 1800s high culture. Yeah, his boss and sometimes-lover wasn’t happy with him.

“We’re gonna need some champagne,” Ressler sighed and reached over to hit the call button for the waiter.

+++++

"What happened, boss?” Face asked, fiddling with his scarf.  “I thought you'd talked to her mom."

"I did.  Her dad's the one who called. Apparently.”

"He's in fucking Illinois."

"Didn't stop him from filing a police report, did it?"  Hannibal checked his watch again, clearly irritated.  Both at the police presence at Amy's townhouse - three squad cars and a CSI van, if Face wasn't mistaken - and the fact that their hunter was over forty-five minutes late.  Face had texted him about the cops, but hadn't heard back at all.  They were supposed to meet up that morning, go over the house with a fine tooth comb, figure out if there was any kind of trail they could establish, but of course, that was shot to hell now. 

Face knew he could have bullshitted his way inside, had it been anybody but Amy Allen reported missing. She blogged about them a lot. A _lot_. She even had a counter on her blog: _DAYS SINCE THE A-TEAM WERE FREE MEN_. She seemed to take their wrongful conviction personally, which was nice most of the time, but right now, it meant the probability was high that some detective would recognize them. Meant they couldn’t help her. So instead, the team had ensconced themselves in one of those trendy, high-end diners that dotted the landscape of Washington DC and its suburbs, trying to figure out what to do next. The place was as close to Amy’s house as Hannibal felt comfortable with; Face had texted Donald that address too. Nothing. 

“Hey guys. Enjoying your morning?”

It was Donald. In a cheaper jacket and suit than Face had seen him in yesterday, that shoulder holster obviously still in place, a coffee from Dunkin Donuts in hand and a bulging bag to match.

"You're late," Hannibal grunted.  The former FBI man smiled a little bit, as if to himself, and tossed the bag down on the table.

"You'll have to forgive me for that.  Thought I'd pick up your friend's mail on my way out."

"Your way out?" BA asked.

Donald nodded, shucking off jacket and gloves before sitting down in one of the six-top's open chairs.  "I am licensed as a private investigator in a couple of different states. Including Maryland.  Makes situations like this easier."

"You make women go missing often?"  BA challenged.

"This is not my fault," he said, as Hannibal pulled the paper bag closer.  "Timing's all wrong."

"It happened the same night..."

"Exactly.  That night.  I would have had somebody hit her in the afternoon, if this was connected to me.  Immediately, you know?  Before she had an opportunity to blog about it."  He spat the word _blog_ out.  "None of her neighbors saw anything they considered to be out of the ordinary.  Thought she was moving out that day."

"Wait, they thought she was moving out?  She didn't say anything to us about that..."

"The van apparently pulled up around lunch time.  Uniforms on the movers, boxes, whole nine yards."  He shrugged.  "She must have been out of the house, if you talked to her that night. Do you know what she was up to?“

 _Investigating_ , Face thought to himself, and swore internally. They should have gone over. They should never had left her alone.

The boss, however, was laser focused on Donald. “What company?"

“Doesn’t matter. They check out. I called.  The company was contacted a couple weeks ago by a woman claiming to be Amy.  They walked her house, gave her a quote, even had her credit card on file.  The phone number matches and I'd be willing to bet that when questioned, the estimator gives the cops a description that matches that of Amy."  He sipped at his coffee.  "They've been setting this up for a while."

"Who's they?" Face asked.

'And why?" Hannibal added. 

"Not sure, but we're going to figure that out."  He set his coffee down, staring off thoughtfully for a moment.  "Look, I've staged faked crime scenes, and cleaned up real ones. I know all the players in this part of the country the people you call to cover up your murders.”

“Of course you do,” Hannibal replied, testy. 

Donald ignored it. “This doesn't match either of those situations.”

"So?"

"Means there's a good chance she's still alive.  At least, she wasn't murdered in that house.  So that's good news."  He picked up one of the letters from the bag.  "But they cleaned her out.  Obviously.  Everything's gone. I got the grand tour.”

"The cops let you inside?"

Donald smiled.  "Private detective."

"Right," Hannibal muttered.  He was sorting through the mail; bills, fliers, letters that looked like cards.  "So nothing in the vents, nothing hidden somewhere..."

"She might have had some hidey-holes in her house, but the cops haven't found anything yet.  Nothing they'd let me see, anyway.  Don't worry about it.  I've got a friend of mine looking into her recent Internet activity.  If it's touched her computer, he'll be able to dig it up."

"But if she didn't put it out..."

"You think Google gives a shit ?" Donald replied evenly. “If you’ve ever opened that browser, they’ve got everything you’e ever done. Trust me. I’ve got a buddy that works there.”

"That's... incredibly disturbing," Face said.

"Useful, though."  Donald picked up one of the letters.  "Amy may or may not be this careful, but I figured it's worth a shot.  Analog solutions are really the only way to guarantee information security in the digital age."

"You think she mailed herself something?" Hannibal asked.

"Or this mess could tell us something."  Donald used Face's untouched knife to slice one of the cards open.  "Let's find out."

It took the team about ten minutes to open and sort out the pile of mail.  Some of it was bills, ads, solicitations for political donations... there were a lot of those, and if anything stood out to Face, that was it.  She had contacts from multiple different states, and across both parties.  But nothing that even approached some kind of concealed message or research from Amy to herself.

"She wasn't a fan of politicians," Murdock said.  "Voted Libertarian too, and I don't see nothing from them in here."

"Yeah, and it's random," BA added.  "No pattern to it.  Oregon, Montana, Hawaii... she's even got some Puerto Rico stuff in here.  And the DNC and RNC both ..."

"She might have been doing research," Face observed.  "You donate to somebody's campaign and they put you on the mailing lists, right?"

"What was she trying to keep track of, though?"

"In this town, could be anything," Hannibal said.

"Looks like she had some actual contacts too," Donald said, fishing one of the cards out of the regular mail pile.  It wasn't much, just a small thank-you note citing Amy's attendance at a small get-together for some charity Face hadn't recognized when he opened it.  A Haiti orphanage relief fund.  It wasn't exactly professional stationary, either, with a stylized scene of flowers and butterflies on the front that looked like it'd been purchased off the 50% off shelf at Hallmark.  "Like this woman.  Kate Dennison."

"What's significant about her?"

"Her name showed up on some other stuff I was looking into, when I was investigating that ex-client of yours," he said, like he hadn't brutally murdered the man.  "Receipts.  For product."

"Anything significant about this Dennison woman?"

"Oh yeah.  She's a Congressional aide.  Works up on the Hill."  Donald held up one of the campaign update letters.  "For this guy."

Hannibal frowned.  "That's Jack Hopkins.  He's..."

"Head of the House Armed Services Committee, next in line for Speaker of the House in the next couple of years.  Yeah."  Donald reached for the envelop the thank-you note had come in.  "Peck, you up for a little good old fashioned surveillance?"

Haiti.  Amy had never done anything on Haiti.  Never mentioned it at all.  The team had never done any work done there either.  "Yeah, sure," he said, and wondered why he felt so sick to his stomach.

+++++

"So this Dennison woman," Peck asked, way too casually for it to be anything other than keen interest, "why'd her name stick out to you?"

To be honest, REssler wsn’t too eager to be sharing information on the case; he had no idea what any of it meant so far, and he didn’t like having somebody tagging along with him. But Smith had insisted that the team be involved, and everyone else seemed a little too high profile. Peck, Ressler knew, at least knew how to blend in. “She'd placed a couple of orders with the photographer in question that I was, uhh..."

"The guy you killed?"

"You are really never going to let that go, are you?"

Surveillance was boring. Surveillance was alway boring. They’d spent most of the day tailing Dennison; fortunately it was a weekend, or it would have been completely impossible, given where she worked. Morning shopping, yoga, dinner with friends, and then the place across the street, some nondescript brownstone in Arlington that was throwing some kind of party. A high-end party, judging by the people who were walking in. Ressler could only imagine. He’d always heard stories about the shit that went on in DC, back when he was in the FBI.

Peck rubbed a hand over his face, some anxious body language if ever there was.  "So what?  That guy was taking... those kind of photos.  Wouldn't he have, err, a lot of clients?"

"Hundreds," Ressler replied with a nod.

"What made her different?"

There wasn't any lying about it, not really.  There was of course a chance she wouldn't recognize him, but Ressler thought that pretty slim.  They were going to have to confront her sooner or later. Probably _they_ ; Ressler knew he wasn’t getting rid of the A-Team until this Amy Allen thing was resolved.  "I uhh, I know her."

"You know her."

"Well, knew her.  Back in the day."

"When you still worked at the FBI?"

"I thought that was implied."  Peck was sort of starting at him, and Ressler shook his head.  "She was an intern.  Spent a summer working down on the Organized Crime desk with me and some other guys.  One of her big projects was putting together some presentations for credit in one of her classes.  I don't remember exactly what it was, but we spent a lot of time going through old Mob cases and analyzing stuff together."

“Like, analyzing, or, umm... _analyzing_.”

“She was too young for my taste,” Ressler said blandly. In truth, it had never really occurred to him. Not back then. He was still dating Audrey then, and wasn’t that an unpleasant thought?

“What, you, like, gay or something?”

“Wouldn’t necessarily say that. But I did give up caring a while back,” Ressler replied, wondering where this was going.  “And that’s rich, coming from you.”

Peck smiled ruefully.  “Fine.  Guilty as charged. I like sex.  But this girl, how'd she end up on the Hill?"

"DC trust fund brat.  They all end up there, sooner or later," Ressler said.  He had had to fight his way in, tooth and nail; DC didn't like outsiders, no matter what it tried to claim.  DC-area grads got preferential treatment for just about every internship in the city, internships led to jobs, jobs led to influence.  He'd been a pissant kid from a Midwest college who hadn't had a rich daddy to float him through years of unpaid slave labor at an agency or in a Congressman's office.  If he hadn't been near top of his class, and hadn't set his sights on the FBI, which needed a bit more home state diversity amongst its agents, he probably never would have made it in.  

"Doesn't sound bitter at all," Peck said, that smirk expanding.

"Next thing you'll be telling me, the Army wasn't your way out of whatever bullshit you grew up in."

Peck laughed.  "Guess we've all got our thing."

“Yeah.  Except with these people," and Ressler jabbed a finger at the house down the street, "theirs tends to be pretty fucked up."

“She’s been in there for an hour.  What do you think is going on?”

“I’ve got no idea.”

“Some of your fucked up shit, maybe.” Peck opened the car door.  “Let’s go find out.”

+++++

Fucked up shit didn’t cover what was going on in that house.

Swingers’ party, as far as Ressler could tell. Normal enough house; nice furniture, high ceilings, lighting turned down low with votive candle strewn in cut glass across the floor boards, around the edges of walls. The music was low and dark, couples everywhere, just everywhere, in all states of undress, in all manner of arrangements.

In all states of undress.

Ressler hated shit like this. Hedonism was one thing, depravity entirely another. But he’d been in Reddington’s orbit long enough to know how to keep his disgust to himself. Peck, on the other hand, seemed fascinated. Had known exactly what to say to get them without an invitation, moved like he was comfortable.

Weird.

He’d gone off to check out god knew what, and Ressler had decided that if he was going to get through the night, he could afford - he would need - like one drink. There was an impromptu bar set up in the kitchen, complete with bartender, and Ressler was just taking his first sip of his whiskey sour when he heard it.

"Ressler?"

The hunter eyed the woman who'd slid up next to him at the bar.  Wonderful.  It was so much easier when he didn't have to do the work himself.  "I think you might have me confused with somebody else."

"No, I don't think so."  And she held out her hand. Perfectly manicured. Perfect hair. A black leather racerback dress that left nothing to the imagination. It all looked a little forced, but what didn't in this town, Ressler thought to himself.  "Kate Dennison.  Remember?  I worked with you for a while on that organized crime seminar we were putting together for my advisor...”

“Oh, right.  That was years ago."  He forced a laugh.  "As I recall, your professor slept through half of it."

"That was probably your riveting briefing skills," she replied, but was smiling.  "So what have you been up to?  Still with the FBI?"

"Left a while back," he answered.  "Doing my own thing now."

"Well, you look good," and she was smiling.

Smiling like she was interested.

What the hell, Ressler figured.  It was going to look suspicious if he didn't move on somebody, and since this was the woman he was here to talk to, it kind of made sense.  "So do you.  Lovely, in fact."

She smiled.  "I was going for fierce."

Donald resisted the urge to roll his eyes.  Black leather was about as lame as it got, in his book.  In Reddington's world, all the way up there at the top with the worst of the global villains, the truly scary women wore Christian Dior.  "The best kind of women are both."

Her blood-red lips parted just a little bit more, tongue darting out to sweep a bit of salt off the rim of her glass.  "You come to these things often?  I haven't seen you here before."

"My own thing takes me out of the country quite a bit."

"I see.  And your date for the night?  Where's she at?"

He smirked.  "Let me text him.  He has a tendency to wander off when he thinks I'm not paying attention."

Oh yeah.  As he made a little show of texting Peck to get his ass back to the makeshift kitchen bar, he could tell.  She was very interested. 

They chatted for a few more minutes, not really saying anything at all, until a warm hand slid possessively around his neck and lips brushed against his ear.  "She's pretty," Peck said in a low, throaty voice.  "But I thought I'd told you I'm getting bored with girls all the time."

Donald turned to get a better look at him, not wanting Peck to fuck this up - because seriously - but the other man's face was unreadable.  Bored, even.  _Conman,_ Donald reminded himself, and went it with.

"I think that's a little rude, don't you?  I don't complain about your twink habit."

"But there are so many fun things you can do with the boys that you can't do with the girls," Peck sighed, and clearly looked Dennison over again.  "I don't know.  I don't think she's up for it.  I told you this was going to be lame.  Nothing but the Capitol Hill nerd crew and NGO unfortunates as far as the eye can see.  You really need to take me back over to Prague again sometime." 

"I'll have you know, I have a law degree from Harvard," she said, just a little bit of anger in her voice.

"Sure."

"What do you mean, sure?"  She looked at Ressler.  "Your boyfriend doesn't seem like he's into this."

That was the impression Ressler was getting too. But before he could say anything, Peck shrugged.  "I'm still talking to you, aren't I?"

By all known laws of man and nature, Ressler was sure that was the end to that.  But instead of getting pissed, Dennison laughed in what sounded nothing like anger.  "You're boyfriend's an asshole," she all but giggled.

 _Giggled_.

Ressler had no idea what kind of sexual jiu jitsu Peck had pulled off with that comment, but it did the trick.  

"Come on," she said, and wound her fingers through Ressler's tie. "I've got a room upstairs."

The upstairs in the massive brownstone as much the same as the rest of the house; dark, candle-lit, flooded with low synthetic music and the sounds of sex. The place obviously had a lot of bedrooms, all being used, but one in particular caught Ressler's eyes.

A door. Closed. Somebody seated in a chair in front of it.

A stylized butterfly image hung from the door knob. The wings weren't solid, filled in instead with a spiral pattern.

Ressler made a note of it, and laughed at Dennison's next joke.

The joviality died, however, when she pushed open the door to her room and they got a good look at who was waiting inside. 

Jack Hopkins.

Already naked. Already in a chair. Handcuffed to it, actually. Cock in a steel cage, hard and leaking and hopeless.

"Who'd you bring for us tonight, honey?" he asked.

She smiled, lips endless in the low light of the room, and yanked Peck in for a kiss, scraping her nails across the back of his skull. "He likes to watch," she explain in a low, sultry voice.

Peck smiled back, and cupped one of her breasts through the black leather she was wearing. "While better men fuck you?" he teased back.

She moaned, and threw her arms around his neck.

Yeah.

Ressler hated the DC trust fund brigade.

+++++

Donald was silent as they left the party, something Face could appreciate.  The hunter seemed completely nonplussed by what had happened back there, but Face? 

He felt like he was drowning.

"You okay?" Donald asked, after they were back in the safety of the car.

He stared back down the street at the mansion.  There was something more going on in that place that night; he could feel it.  Even out of the place now, he could feel it.  "Feel like I need a shower," he grumbled. 

"She wasn't that bad..."

"You know what I mean."  Hannibal was not going to be happy about this.  Face knew it.  Hannibal hated it when he used his body to get through a job.  _Hated_ it.  He'd shot off one text saying he was still working Donald's lead, Hannibal had sent a _be careful, love you_ back.

Of course.

Hannibal never let him go anywhere without telling him he loved him.

Face had made that congressman lick his aide clean before they'd left the room. Get between her legs and bury his face in her cunt and suck her clean. One final humiliation for a man who had very clearly gotten off on being humiliated. She'd expected it; she'd laughed as they pulled their clothes back on and left them to their devices.

Donald nodded, and pulled out into the street.  "I've got a place not too far from here.  Want to stop off?"

"Yeah, that'd be good."

 _A place_ turned out to be a fifth-story loft apartment that was too empty to be anything more than a place to crash, but since that's all that was needed that night, he didn't comment on it.  The place was an old industrial warehouse, done up quite nicely with original wood floors and exposed brick and brushed stainless surfaces everywhere. 

"You don't live here," he observed.

"God no.  It's too sterile for my taste, but the shower's nice," Donald said with a yawn, throwing the dead bolts on the door.  "That's all we're after right now, right?"

"Guess so."

"Great," Donald said, and retrieved a beer from the fridge, some microbrew from Colorado Face didn't recognize.  "It's through there."

They swapped out in silence, Face wrapping himself up in one of the bathrobes hung neatly on the towel-warming rack without even bothering with a towel.  He padded out barefoot into the loft's single room, figuring he would help himself to one of those beers.  His clothes he'd left on the floor near the bed, a low platform thing barely more that a foot above the lovingly refinished oak planks.  For some reason, staring down at that reminded him of another tiny apartment, another bed, another part of his life...

Face swallowed.

Hannibal hated it when he solved problems with his body.

But Hannibal was going to be pissed off at him regardless.  And right now, the last thing Face needed in his head were _those_ memories worming their way back up to the surface.  So what?  He needed to not have to think about anything right now.

He left the bathrobe on the bed, and went back to the bathroom.

Donald's back was to him when he cracked the door.  Face had seen that tattoo before, when they'd strip-searched the guy, when they'd tag-teamed that Congressional aide not an hour before, but it looked different just then.  In the steam and the water, with Donald's muscles active and moving, the bird looked alive.

"Figured you wouldn't mind some company," he said as he opened the glass shower door.

Donald just raised an eyebrow. "You didn't get enough for the night?"

"Don't know if you noticed, but there was a girl in the way," Face said with a laugh, and ran a hand down Donald's smooth chest. "And I'm a sucker for guys who wax."

Donald laughed.  

Face dropped to his knees.

Donald groaned.

The man really did have a nice cock. And right now, that weight in his mouth, that taste on his tongue, the feel of hands in his hair, everything wet and warm and _safe_ somehow, was exactly what he needed.

+++++

Face woke up alone.  
In an unfamiliar bed. Naked. In sunshine.

Men talking in the background.

"... have a deal, and you know it.  You agreed to it."

"Dear boy, the situation isn't quite as black and white as you might...."

"I'm not suicidal enough to think that you'd ever make anything black and white.  But I am not Dembe, I am not at your beck and call at all hours, whenever you fucking like..."

"This missing blogger, this Amy Allen, there are events in motion right now and the last thing I need is for you to be involved with the pack of mercenaries trying to locate her."

"Did you get the FBI to tell my parents I was killed during an investigation?  Was that you?  Would you stoop that fucking low to do that to my mom?"

"I don't..."

"My mom, Red, the lady's been terrified ever since I left for the Academy, I was going to get shot in the face by some mobster on a stakeout. The woman who raised me, my mom. You make the FBI tell her that I was killed in an explosion overseas, on some classified mission, with my body buried in some fucking German cemetery where she didn't even get to have a funeral.  Yes or no. Did you do that?"

Dead silence fell. 

That was about the time Face got curious.

The loft wasn't that big, so just sitting up gave him a clear picture of who was talking; Donald and Reddington, the former in different clothes than what he'd been wearing last night, a pair of jeans and a plaid button-down that looked like it's been washed too many times.  His hair was still messed up, like he'd just woken up and hadn't bothered to gel it back yet.  Reddington, on the other hand, was a picture of propriety.

He also looked highly irritated.

"What difference would it make if I had?  You haven't spoken to them in years," Reddington said, and then made a little show of looking over his shoulder.  "Ahh, Lieutenant Peck.  If you're awake, you might as well come join us.  I brought Donald's favorite, apple fritters."

Donald had left the bathrobe at the foot of the bed.  Figuring this was potentially some kind of weird test thing with Reddington, Face didn't bother trying to hide himself as he walked the few steps over to the table, pulling the robe on as he went.  It was still warm.  Donald must have put it back on that towel warmer after last night.

"Can't say I'm much of a fan of donuts," Face said, but took one anyway. 

Reddington was kind of eyeing him.  "Well, who'd want to jeopardize abs like that?" he quipped, and nodded in Donald's direction.  "I assume your boss did a records search on him."

"Yeah.  Your boy's got an interesting file."

Donald rolled his eyes.  "Red, I know you're not here to talk to me.  So tell him what you want him to tell Smith and let's get this over with."

"Actually, Donald, I am here to talk to you.  Finding some ruggedly handsome ex-Special Forces soldier in bed with you is just icing on the cake."  Reddington's voice hardened.  "Wherever you were last night, they have photographs."

Face blinked; Donald didn't ract at all. "And?"

"And I need to know where those were taken."

"Why?"

"Donald, these are very dangerous people we're talking about here.  You had a sitting, ranking congressman in that room with you, and..."

"We're just trying to find Amy," Face interjected.

"Miss Allen is more than likely dead."

"That's what I thought," Donald said.  "But none of this fits the usual MOs.  She was grabbed.  Taken.  They made it look legit, like she'd moved out on her own volition."

"That makes this more concerning, not less."

"Her last round of stories, she was looking into human trafficking operations.  She had a whole series in the works connecting children going missing from orphanages in conflict areas and after natural disasters.  But she was using it as a bridge, maybe, to talk about the same shit going on stateside," Donald said.  "The most recent was about a Baltimore foster care facility that's seen six kids go missing in the past month alone.  There are people, the same people, who keep popping up as donors or aide workers...."

Face's stomach twisted up.  "I don't remember those stories."

Donald nodded.  "They were saved as drafts on her hard drive.  A friend at Google forwarded me the documents this morning."  He turned back to Red.  "You remember that case we worked, a long time ago?  That philanthropist who was selling kids on the black market?  What if this is another situation like that?"

"Then all the more reason to stay away from it."

" _Kids_ , Red.  Even you aren't that much of a heartless bastard."

"My involvement with the FBI's petty little criminal investigations ended with Berlin and yours, Donald, ended after you dropped your badge in the Hudson.  We are not here to help people," Reddington stated flatly.

"My team is," Face said.  "We are."  He looked at Donald.  "If you want to just walk away from..."

"I told 'em I'd help," Donald sighed, not meeting Reddington's icy glare.  "You can't expect me to just let this go."

"No, you?  Wouldn't dream of thinking you'd exercise a little self-control," Reddington said coolly, and then laughed.  "But if you'd like to bring your new friend around when you're done, I confess I wouldn't mind it in the least.  We could all go out to the Hamptons and throw a very interesting dinner party.  Have I ever told you, I know a wonderful lady who runs an exquisite catering company in Martha's Vineyard that specializes in..."

"You can let yourself out, right?"

Reddington snorted, but stood, sliding his hat back on. "Considering that I am paying for this place..."

"Goodbye, Red."

Face waited until Donald had relocked the door before asking. And then, only carefully. He had so many questions. "Is that really the whole story your parents got?" Sosa hadn't been too up on the details.

Donald looked tired.  "Apparently.  My buddy at Google got me that file too this morning.  It's some bullshit.  Like they deliberately went for my mom's worst nightmare."  He scrubbed a hand back through his messy hair.  Like this, unstyled and in the morning light, it was much more red than Face had realized before.  "What'd you tell your family when you got arrested?"

"Never had to worry about it.  My family's the team, and they know what happened."

"That makes it easier," Donald agreed. 

 _Sometimes_ , Face thought to himself.  "Can you send me Amy's drafts?"

"Sure.  And I can do you one better.  I've got her entire Internet history from the past month.  If you guys want to start working on that, I'm going to keep developing that lead we found last night."

"That Dennison woman?"

Donald nodded.  "That's the way in.  But I need to know where I'm going."

"Your FBI file said you suck at undercover."  Actually, his performance reviews put it quite a bit more delicately than that, but Face had spent almost fifteen years in the military performance report system; he knew what anything other than glowing, fawning praise indicated.  And glowing praise was not what was found in Donald's agent evaluations or supervisor case reports when it came to that sort of thing.

"Good thing there's nothing undercover about being a disgraced former agent who's working as a private detective and occasionally getting paid to kill people."

"You think she's going to listen to that?"

"Oh, come on.  You know these D.C. female law majors.  She's going to eat it up with a spoon."

But even if the guy was bad at formal undercover, Face was having trouble figuring out how much of the give-a-shit attitude was genuine, and how much was a well-constructed act. 

"Does Reddington know anything about Amy?"

"Not worth it even to ask."  Donald checked the time on his phone.  "I should get going.  Sunday morning is the perfect time for a little obvious surveillance."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Umm, so yeah, no detailed sex scenes in here? I... couldn't write that one. It was just too depraved. Even for me. (Plus I realized I have a pretty serious disassociation issue right now) 
> 
> What does Reddington know and what isn't he saying? Hmm...
> 
> Written to the Neon Demon soundtrack.


End file.
